Holly lay on the cold, snowy ground, gasping for breath. Butler was pushing on the door, his face purple with effort. Athena was trying to get him to stop. Holly was surprised that the door hadn't buckled already. "Butler, let me open it. I'm sure I can," pleaded Athena. Reluctantly, Butler stood aside, and Athena approached the door. She placed her hands against the freezing cold metal, but, unlike Butler, she wasn't pushing the door. She just placed her hands there and appeared to concentrate. A thin stream of smoke trickled from between her fingers. Funny, that, thought Holly, It's almost as if she's melting… Holly could hardly suppress a gasp. It WAS melting! The girl was melting her way through the door, somehow. Eventually, a hole big enough even for Butler to squeeze through, if barely. Now they were in, and just needed to find Artemis
. . . .
Meanwhile
Artemis watched the door close behind the creature, and breathed out a sigh of relief. He had managed to steal the keys to the handcuffs when the creature, Teya, had walked behind him. "Your friends cannot help you," she had said, leaning over him. Then, he had felt the cold metal against the back of his hand. The keys, he had realized, if he could steal those keys, he could unlock the handcuffs holding his hands behind the chair. And he had managed it, somehow, and with a certain amount of luck. Just as he lifted the ring of keys from her belt, the door opened and she spun around. Artemis quickly slipped the ring of keys up his sleeve. That had not been as easy as the movies made it look, as the keys were not immune to gravity and kept trying to fall from this sleeves. But it had worked, and now he was working to find the right key for the handcuffs and soon was unlocking himself.
With his free hands, Artemis untied himself from the chair, and rubbed some of the feeling back into his legs. He stood up, a bit unsteady on numb legs, and looked at the keypad on the door. This one probably WAS alarmed, so he had one chance. He thought back to the other keypads, they most likely had the same combination. Those two did, and Artemis tried it. The door slid open, and Artemis darted through.
There was a sentry at the end of the hall, and Artemis ducked down behind a stack of sacks outside the door. He appeared to be in a supply hallway, there were boxes and sacks, crates and baskets, full of what seemed to be full of food, weapons, and clothing. He peeked out from behind the sacks, and, when the sentry's back was turned, dashed to a stack of crates. In this way, he made his way to the end of the hallway. When Artemis got to the end of the hallway however, he needed to find a way to distract the sentry long enough for him to get down the hallway.
He looked at the crates in front of him. These were full of weapons, Artemis took one. He flipped the setting to the stun setting, and leveled it at the sentry, who had his back turned. Artemis aimed slowly, and fired. The man fell, and it would have been soundless, were it not for the fact that the man tumbled into a crate full of more weapons, which all went off with a BANG, and showered the wall with bullets. Artemis took off, flying down the hallway like a bullet shot from a gun, pure terror fueled his adrenaline as more of the creatures appeared in front of him.
He stopped, breathing hard, and saw a hallway going right. He took it. But this hallway was a dead end. A VERY dead end. Artemis stared at the wall, then back at the hoard of the small people. They were all brandishing some serious looking weapons, buzz batons, guns, some even had knifes and swords. Artemis pressed his back against the wall, wishing he could dissolve into thin air.
Holly ran through the hallways, towards the noise. The noise that sounded suspiciously like gunshots, a very loud racket. She had long been plagued by the thought that Artemis probably had his own plan, and as likely as not, this plan would be really rather dangerous for the Irish boy. The group heard yelling, and turned toward the noise. Artemis. Holly skidded to a stop, Athena and Butler beside her. Artemis had his back to the wall, and was face to face with a band of weapon brandishing group of Athena's people, the Aeri. Artemis looked up, and saw them. "Don't worry…" he said, and someone shot him and he crumpled to the floor.
